Tour Down Under - Stage 2

You wouldn’t have thought we were in the same country.  In a complete contrast to the glaring heat of yesterday, Stage 2 of the Santos Tour Down Under began with a cold morning half the temperature of the day before.  Steele von Hoff (UniSA) was glad of his gloves as he lined up with the 130 other riders at the starting line – Jurgen Roelandts of Lotto-Belisol and Frédéric Guesdon of FDJ-Big Mat both pulled out of the race after yesterday’s crash.

The more clement conditions meant that the attacks began almost as soon as the race did – Martin Kohler of Team BMC and Will Clarke riding for Team UniSA launched themselves off the peloton after barely a kilometre .  The pair continued expanding the gap out, reaching around seven minutes from the peloton after the first sprint point, which Kohler won with Clarke second.  The three-second time deduction for winning the sprint put Kohler just one second behind Andre Greipel’s overall lead, while three kilometres behind the riders began attacking off the front of the peloton in pursuit of sprint points.

Australian Michael Matthews of Rabobank claimed third in the sprints, but instead of the riders competing for third falling back to the peloton after the sprint point, a chase group of 12 riders formed, trailing six minutes behind the two leaders, with a few more riders 200 metres ahead of the peloton.  But their glory was short-lived, quickly reeled back into the peloton , still seven or eight minutes behind Clarke and Kohler.

But Kohler’s moment in the sun seemed to be short-lived, too.  As he and Clarke passed the second sprint point the gap went back down to 5:50, and Kohler began to drop back.  By the time they reached the finish line in Stirling to begin the first of three laps, Kohler had completely disappeared back into the peloton and Clarke had a 12-and-a-half minute lead on them.  He soloed through the finish line for the first time, attracting a huge cheer from the amassed crowd, which then stopped and stared incredulously for 11 minutes, waiting for the peloton.

The circuit took the riders a little longer than expected, around 40 minutes instead of the anticipated half an hour, but Will Clarke appeared to finish his first lap, albeit a little less comfortably than before.  The peloton rode by again 11 minutes later, having brought in an attempted break by Movistar rider Angel Madrazo during the lap.  It was a minute further back to the green lantern; AG2R La Mondiale’s Boris Shiplevskiy brought up the rear.

Between laps there was plenty to keep the eager public occupied – the Tour Parade, with its funny cars, waving drivers and  free giveaways kept the kids entertained, and the arrival of cycling legend Eddy Merckx caused great excitement among the fans.  The colourful jerseys of ProTeams and local clubs alike abounded, and every second person seemed to be pushing a bike.

But as Clarke came closer to the end of the race, his laps became slower...and the peloton became faster.  Coming round for the third time and receiving the warning bell as he began his last lap, Clarke had lost two to three minutes to the pursuing hordes on his second lap and was down to an eight-minute lead.  As the peloton raced past onto their final lap, closing in on their prey, the tension in the crowd became palpable.  They were loving the young Tasmanian underdog from the local team.

Except the prospects weren't looking good.  The commentators were counting down the gap between the leader and the peloton as they raced around the final circuit of Stirling, the crowd bellowing unheard encouragement for the 26-year-old to hold off his pursuers just a little longer.  The noise at the finish line increased dramatically as a lone rider in a convoy of motorbikes came into view just 300 metres from the finish line, the peloton held at bay long enough for Clarke to ride across the finish and claim his well-deserved stage win, along with the sprint classification jersey and the King of the Mountains jersey.

The peloton stormed by a minute later, sprinters like Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Sky jostling for position.  But it was destined to be an all-Aussie peloton for the day - Michael Matthews sprinted up again for second place this time, while Australian National Road Race Champion Simon Gerrans of GreenEDGE rounded out the top three.  Justifiably, Martin Kohler's efforts earlier in the day put him two seconds ahead of Andre Greipel to claim the ochre leader's jersey.

On another note, a personal highlight of the day - as the riders began heading back out onto the road to ride back to the Tour village, the traffic being at a standstill, I found Jérémy Roy of Team FDJ-Big Mat, who kindly stopped to speak to me for a minute.  He even handed me his bidon (which was nice and cold, by the way) after I gave him a small toy koala for his daughter Julia.  Maybe I need an FDJ jersey as well now...

The 2012 Australian National Championships - Crits

Crits are a lovely way to start the National Championships and get all the locals hyped about the sporting legends in their midst.  Names like Robbie McEwen, Mark Renshaw and defending champion Jonathan Cantwell were enough to have Ballarat residents out and about in the main street for the first races of the 2012 Australian National Championships, which culminate with the time trials on Tuesday.

The U23 men took the 1.1km circuit in their stride, defending champion Ben Grenda joining with the peloton in the one-minute laps of Ballarat's Sturt St.  With the usual contention for points at the intermediate sprints, the 33-kilometre race passed without incident; Aaron Donnelly's breakaway being reeled in just in time for a bunch sprint at the finish.  19-year-old Scott Law of New South Wales already had the winner's salute down pat, arms outstretched to the sky as he led Jay McCarthy and Ben Grenda over the line.  “These criteriums suit me very well,” he commented on the podium after receiving his national champion’s jersey.  “I’m usually good on the track.”

Due credit to the other medallists, too.  As he left the podium area, instead of handing it to his girlfriend or mother, Jay McCarthy passed his flower bouquet to the nearest female spectator, which appreciative recipient happened to be my mother/photographer waiting nearby (thank you, Jay, they look lovely on our fireplace!).  ACT cyclist Mitchell Lovelock-Fay’s mother just got a kiss on the cheek, but it was easy to see her pride in her son.  The sprint classification winner’s career has made huge progress in the past 18 months, hinting at a bright future for the track/road rider, who turns 20 next week.

 Alexis Rhodes was the golden girl of the day, making an early break in her new GreenEDGE kit and never looking back.  Her GreenEDGE teammates sat on the front and kept the pace as low as possible, allowing Alexis to build up a lead that hovered between 10 and 15 seconds for the final half of the race.  She stated afterward that her win was due largely to her confidence in her teammates to keep the peloton off her back.

To the encouragement of the crowd she came home in just under 50 minutes to take the gold medal, her teammates crossing the line behind her.   South Australia’s Annette Edmondson took out the bronze medal with Rhodes’ GreenEDGE compatriot Melissa Hoskins rounding out the top three for silver.  At 21, Hoskins also took out the under-23 title, shivering, “I’m cold now,” as she waited for the under-23 medal ceremony, soaked in champagne from the elite women’s presentation.  Edmondson, who rode the entire race with her mobile phone in her back pocket after choosing not to stop mid-race to remove it, also claimed U23 silver, while defending elite and U23 champion Lauren Kitchen took U23 bronze.  GreenEDGE fans were also pleased to see Tiffany Cromwell on the platform as the winner of the criterium sprint jersey.

But as always, it was the elite men’s race that everyone was waiting to see.  The presence of triple Tour de France green jersey-winner Robbie McEwen was enough to have spectators spellbound, myself notwithstanding.  Add in the best lead-out man in the world, Mark Renshaw, and a goodly portion of Australia’s new ProTour cycling team and the atmosphere was electric.  Ballarat boy Pat Shaw put on a good show for his hometown crowd, joining in or initiating every breakaway effort and stubbornly refusing to die, in an effort reminiscent of FDJ’s Jeremy Roy in the 2011 Tour de France.  The crowd cheer of ‘Go, Pat!’ can’t have hurt either.

But finally tuckered out, Shaw was reeled in to allow for a bunch sprint, the green and orange jerseys of Robbie McEwen and Mark Renshaw respectively creeping up from the middle of the peloton towards the front.  Though McEwen was out of shape with food poisoning all through the race, Renshaw saw his chance at the end and went for it, only to be pipped across the line by a flying orange form.  Genesys Wealth Advisers’ Anthony Giacoppo had been perfectly placed by his omnipresent team to race up behind the world-class sprinter and take gold, with teammate Steele von Hoff following him across to claim bronze.  Giacoppo referenced the number of Genesys riders as a strategy for Sunday’s road race, mildly stating that there’s “…quite a few of us.” 

But the prize for the biggest team would have to go to GreenEDGE, with 16 riders entered in the Elite Men’s Road Race, including several popular favourites like defending champion Jack Bobridge and Milan-San-Remo winner Matt Goss.  The competition will no doubt be fierce on the hills of Buninyong, but will the numbers be enough for the Australian team to achieve their dream of claiming an Australian jersey?

Jayco Herald Sun Tour - A Fangirl Perspective

The best part about having a crit-style final stage is that the riders treat it differently to a normal stage in a stage race. When your day's racing is 10 laps of the same circuit your warm-up seemingly doesn't need to be as intense as for six hours through small towns in country Victoria, because for until 10 minutes before the start of the race nearly all of the riders were relaxing in their team tents in the small square beside Lygon St and mingling with the fans.

Of course, for the true GreenEDGE fan-in-waiting, the number of Australian riders was brilliant. The number of ProTeams there was also pretty awesome. Needless to say, until such time as the racing started I was having the absolute time of my life running around amongst all the team and sponsor stalls, having my photo taken with every rider I could find.

   I was stoked to see the Garmin-Cervelo team scoot past me, so I stopped for a quick photo with larrikin-esque Aussie Heinrich Haussler, as well as current Australian National Time Trial Champion Cameron Meyer. Unfortunately I was too slow to grab his brother Travis riding behind him. Both brothers are riding for Australia's Team GreenEDGE next season.

  

But the fun didn't stop there. I found Cameron Wurf, who was an absolute darling with a lovely smile and quite happy to stop for a quick photo with me.

 I also found Team Garmin's legendary Jack Bobridge, current Australian National Road Race Champion and former World Under-23 Road Race Champion, who recently broke the world record for the 4000m on the track by a full three seconds.  Needless to say, he's also been signed to GreenEDGE next year.

Adam Hansen is, unfortunately, still riding for Omega Pharma-Quickstep, as it's now called, next year. Despite being a very popular rider when I found him he still had a big grin for the cameras.

 Jonathan Cantwell rated a photo because he's Australian (though not WorldTour), but also as the winner of a crit in Ballarat last year.  He beat both Meyers brothers, which annoyed me at the time chiefly because I'd never heard of Jonathan Cantwell.  Can't say that anymore!

 Naturally I eventually tracked down Nathan Haas, the rising star that shone brighter than all others at the JHST this year, taking home all bar two jerseys.  The 22-year-old has been snaffled up for next year's pro season by none other than - guess who - Garmin-Cervelo, who seem to love snaffling up all the rising Aussie talents (until GreenEDGE snaffles them back, of course).

 Steele von Hoff, who like Heinrich Haussler has an awesome European name but looks as ocker as can be, comfortably won the Tour of Gippsland and didn't mind me gatecrashing the 'we're waiting to go onstage and receive our jersey' boy's room to get a photo.
 

 Taswegian Bernie Sulzberger is the older brother of ProTeam FDJ rider Wes Sulzberger.  Had I been able to find Wes, I'd've asked him to pass along a message to Jeremy Roy from his Australian fans.

  Pat Shaw is a Ballarat boy and hometown hero, thus warranting a photo.  But it's not our mutual origins that are the cause of our grins.  No, we're laughing because Pat is hiding the GreenEDGE Cycling cap he stole off my head behind his back.  No need to tell you which team he's NOT riding for next year, then.

I got so excited when I saw this fellow's name on the start list. Marcel Kittel has ridden the Vuelta a Espana and won a stage this year - How to Win Fans and Excite Fangirls. Speaking of stage wins, he took out Stages 3 and 5 of the JHST too - as a cool-down from the Vuelta, I expect.

 It wasn't just individual riders I found floating around, either.  As a non-ProTour team and an international team, none of the cycling aficionados there had any idea who these boys were.  As such the MTN Qhubeka were relaxing together in their tent and all jumped up and joined the circle when I asked for a photo.  Second from the left is current Namibian road and time trial champion Loto Petrus, hence the unusual maillot.
 

Despite having a Russian best friend, I've rarely been so excited over anything Russian as when I saw this uniform riding around.  A real-live ProTour team riding around with Tour de France vets?  I was stoked, even though Giro, Vuelta and Tour rider Vladimir Isaichev was nowhere to be seen.  I did, however, get the above photo taken with Nikolay Trusov on the left, and I was almost speechless to be in the presence of Egor Silin in the centre, who was on this year's Katusha team for the TdF.  The Colossus on the right is, oddly enough for the pro-home-nation team, Belgian Stijn Vandenbergh.

I did ask if I could take the sign-on board home as a souvenir, but apparently Lord Mayor Robert Doyle got first dibs on behalf of the city of Melbourne.  Sigh.  The perks of power.

 In the meantime, I was tracking down the SBS journos - Anthony Tan, SBS Cycling Central columnist and post-stage dissecter for the Tour de France.

 

Even cooler - Matt Keenan commentates the first half of each Tour de France stage, before Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen bring it home.

 This familiar face first appeared to me in my press room at the Road World Championships in Geelong last year.  Mike Tomalaris, fresh off the set of a live edition of SBS Cycling Central at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour.  Is there a higher aspiration?

 

Saved the most special for last...that GreenEDGE Cycling cap goes remarkably well next to the fellow who's bankrolling the whole venture - Gerry Ryan, owner of Jayco Caravans, has promised funding for GreenEDGE for the next three years.  Three years of sheer delight and excitement for me.  He more than deserves a photo for that.